Yes, the Guardian’s religion blogger Andrew Brown really did blame Israel for the Arab persecution of Christians in the Arab Middle East.

Here are the relevant passages in his latestpost on former president George W. Bush’s recent work with a group of Messianic Jews:

…there is widespread confusion among evangelicals about whether Israel is really a kind of America overseas – a recent poll for the Pew Foundation found that twice as many American Evangelicals as American Jews were unwavering in their support for Israel. This is something that successive Israeli governments have deliberately cultivated.

…

But the links between Zionism and Christianity go much further and deeper than that. The conversion of the Jews, and their restoration to Jerusalem, was a great enthusiasm among English evangelicals in Victorian times. Barbara Tuchman’s marvelous book Bible And Sword chronicles some of the consequences.

It’s fair to say that without the belief of Victorian upper class evangelical Englishmen – almost exactly the equivalents of George W Bush – there never would have been a Balfour Declaration. And without that declaration, there could not have been the Jewish immigration to Palestine that laid the foundations for the state of Israel.

Some people will see this as an example of the destructive craziness of religion, and perhaps it is, but it is also an example of the way in which theology is only powerful and important when it is wrapped up in identity. Because if there is one group that has suffered as a result of the establishment of the state of Israel and its support by Western Christian countries, it is the historic Christians of the Middle East – who are now the victims of persecution throughout the region and scapegoats of an angry nationalism.

Whilst Brown’s characterization of the foundation of Zionism and the establishment of Israel is completely ahistorical, the magnitude of Brown’s fabrication regarding the cause of anti-Christian racism in the modern Middle East is simply difficult to comprehend.

Christians are facing systemic persecution throughout the Arab and Muslim Middle East to the point where studies have predicted that “Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands”, or will at least“effectively disappear from the region as a cultural and political force within our lifetime”. As The Telegraph commented on a recent study by the think-tank Civitas, “the most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam”. The report estimates that “between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or been killed in the past century.” Some 2 million Christians have reportedly fled in the past 20 years alone.

Of course, the one country in the region where the Christian populationis growing in total numbers is Israel.

Yet, the Guardian blogger not only ignores this statistical evidence, but views the disturbing news broadcast daily of Coptic churches being burned, Christians arrested for ‘blasphemy’, and clergy kidnapped and killed in Muslim dominated countries in the region, and somehow sees the root cause in Israel’s very creation.

As Walid Phares, a Lebanese-American scholar who advises the U.S. on issues related to terrorism, said at a conference on protecting Christians in the Middle East in 2012 sponsored by CAMERA, the plight of religious and ethnic minorities in Muslim and Arab majority countries in the region is ignored due in part to political correctness, cultural relativism and a malign obsession with Israel.

In the future when we cite examples of how antisemitism manifests itself in unusual ways at the Guardian and ‘Comment is Free’, Brown’s astonishing moral inversion, in which Muslims persecute Christians but Jews are still to blame, will be near the top of our list.

They take on the Christians because they have finished with the Jews.
Mr. Andrew Brown, try sell your gob sh!t to Eden Atyas’ mother!
You only need to speak to her and look in her eyes to know full well who’s the agressor in the ME and why – and it is not the Israelis.

Perhaps Mr. Brown can explain who is responsible for the exodus of Christians in Iraq?
Erbil (Agenzia Fides) – The first conference, sponsored by the organization “Friends of Bartala” to denounce the process of demographic balance interference in areas where Iraqi native Christian communities of Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac tradition have historically been concentrated, will be held on 23 and 24 November in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Association “Friends of Bartala” was established in April 2013 with the intent to develop and propose analysis and initiatives to document and combat long-term processes intended to alter the demographic balance in areas traditionally inhabited by Christian communities, such as the renowned plain of Nineveh. The name of the association refers to the city of Bartala, also known as Bartella, inhabited mostly by Christians and Syrians located 20 kilometers from Mosul, in Nineveh province. More than 130 writers, artists, politicians, journalists and Iraqi Christian and Muslim academics have joined the Association. Professor Kazem Habib is the President of the Organising Committee of the conference, called to ask about the exodus of Christians from a country still torn by explosions of sectarian violence, ten years after the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 14/11/2013)

Perhaps Mr. Brown can explain who is responsible for the exodus of Christians in Iraq?
But he did explain already… the Jews naturally. Learn the Guardian’s truth Gerald – if Muslims kill Christians then this is the Jews’ fault.

A lot. For example, he can start by explaining that the “…persecution (of ME Christians) throughout the region and scapegoats of an angry nationalism…” is in fact a result of 30’s nationalism, 60’s socialism and secterian battles which continue to this day and have nothing to do with the Western powers or Israel.
Israel and the West are being used by various groups as a battering ram as we can clearly see in both Egypt and Syria where either groups invent idiotic allegations against the other side to win votes and support.
Such allegations include painting the other side as a zionist or US stooge.

This should have been made clear and is totally being ignored by the author.
I believe this is being done intentionally to paint a false narrative.
Do you believe I am wrong?

“Your bitterness and resentment with the world..”
Interesting that your ego is so inflated that you consider yourself to be the world.
And as usual you are wrong,
I have no “bitterness or resentment with the world” but I have no patience or toleration for a self-appointed morality monitor like you, who can only whinge and insult those that disagree with him like a playground bully.

“I “insult those that disagree with him” is more fiction!”
Really pretzelberg

So in your reply to Fritz @ 1:09 PM, when YOU write,
“..because you’ve been shown to be full of shit”

That is fiction?

I also note in your later reply, @ 2:01 PM, to Fritz that you whinge,
“..the only response you can come up with is a juvenile level of abuse.”
But an hour earlier it was perfectly acceptable for you to write that Fritz has “been shown to be full of shit”

Hilarious how people keep supporting Mr. Misanthrope Gerald.
He rudely “informs” me that I have no right to express an opinion about UK security issues – but continues to post on security matters related to a country he is not a resident of!

The world’s leading liberal voice is publishing the ramblings of an openly racist dirt who thinks that Muslims behave like spoiled children, can’ manage their anger, and vent their uncontrollable rage by murdering others who have nothing to do with the cause of their problems.

Brown implies that Muslims are incapable of taking out their anger against the true “guilty party” and therefore have to lash out against some entirely innocent victim. That is pretty damning criticism of muslims, imputing a lack of reason and self-control.

On looking up the article I then looked at the comments. A contributor who asked “Why does the Guardian allow this sort of crap to be printed?” (or words to that effect) received the highest number of recommendations. Other comments in a similar vein also received a high number of recommendations. This leads me to believe that whilst one of the Guardian’s aims is to encourage articles of the quasi-liberal crap variety, a remarkably high proportion of its readership sees it for exactly what it is. The truth is that they print stuff because it is controversial – not because it is the truth. This is what happens when your circulation is in terminal decline.

Of course he did. It’s just the latest version of “the Jews murdered Christ” and apparently the CoE includes Mohammed in the victims of the Jews. 5 years tops, the Guardian will openly call for the expulsion of Jews from the UK as a matter of editorial policy.

Andrew Brown is a ludicrous, silly little man who is posing as someone who has some idea of what he is talking about. This anti-Israel hate tirade of his, which he brazenly tries to sell as a valid socio-political comment and insight into religious matters, just confirms for me once more (if one still needed any confirmation at this point in time) why his articles, just like the rest of the paper, should best be avoided like the plague.